Cloud computing solutions incorporate database software for managing databases in the cloud. Enterprises with multiple disparate databases can move their databases to the cloud to benefit from the advantages of cloud computing. One existing approach in moving a database is to generate a DDL script to recreate the local database schema on the cloud database. The source tables are exported as files before being moved to cloud storage and loaded on the cloud database.
Network latencies are an important factor when moving a database onto the cloud. In large enterprises, cloud systems may not necessarily be housed locally and can be accessible only through a Virtual Private Network which can further increase latencies. Compression can be used to reduce the size of data files and thus improve file transfer performance. General purpose compression software products exist. However, general purpose compression overlooks compression opportunities that are available with tabular data.